Tag: the state of the nhs

Last week’s post left off just as I was about to go into hospital to find out when they’d be booking me in for surgery. I had been hoping that it might be fairly soon, since I’m apparently an urgent case and I’ve barely been able to leave the house in months, but hope is a treacherous and flighty beast, and of course things didn’t go quite so smoothly.

The waiting list for surgery is 4-6 months long; the minimum amount of time in which I’ll be booked for surgery is four months. Then there’s an eight-week recovery period, so basically whatever happens I’m essentially taking the rest of the year off.

They can’t push me up the list unless my Angry Internal Organs actually rupture, which made me start wishing they would, until I remembered that would have irritating potential side effects like involuntary sudden death. So I figured maybe I’ll obey the doctor’s instructions and not do anything to make this whole situation any more precarious, and look after my Angry Organs, and hopefully maintain this tenuous truce for as long as I can.

Last week’s post ended with me about to call the hospital and insist that they give me an appointment. According to the NHS website, the maximum waiting time for non-urgent procedures is 18 weeks. I was first seen on the 9th of March, and have been told several times since then that my case is an urgent one, and yet still I have no date for surgery.

I don’t blame the NHS for this. I’m a lefty, so I blame the Tories.

But regardless of who’s to blame, the fact is that the whole thing hasn’t exactly run smoothly. The week before last I was slotted in for an emergency endoscopy after the hospital forgot to send me an actual appointment, and then they were trying to make me wait until the 31st of July for the results appointment, which had originally been scheduled for the 19th of June. Some more digging around on the NHS website uncovered that, if the hospital cancels at the last minute for a non-clinical reason or otherwise messes up your appointment, they’re required to give you a new one within 18 days.